Purchasing a machine for my garage

Hi,
I'm new to this website. I'm looking at purchasing a CNC mill for my garage. There are 2 locally that I'm interested in. Both are Bridgeports. An explorer x-26 and a discovery 300. Both are priced the same at $5000. I'm planning on doing some hobby work and also some production work for a friend's businesses. I've Neve used either one of these machines. I would appreciate your feedback on these models. Also my garage ceiling is about 96"

Cls84 said:

Hi,
I'm new to this website. I'm looking at purchasing a CNC mill for my garage. There are 2 locally that I'm interested in. Both are Bridgeports. An explorer x-26 and a discovery 300. Both are priced the same at $5000. I'm planning on doing some hobby work and also some production work for a friend's businesses. I've Neve used either one of these machines. I would appreciate your feedback on these models. Also my garage ceiling is about 96"

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Get a fully enclosed machine, if your going to do production work I'd get a machine with an ATC, maybe Haas Minimill, or maybe a small Fadal. Some of the small fadals came as single phase machines. Neither of those BP's is worth $5000 imho

When your using either of those BP's and coolant is spraying all over the garage, and your standing next to them all night changing tools, you'll wish you had a real VMC

I'll second triumph's advice about enclosed and a toolchanger if you are going to do any kind of production. For a one-man show both increase your efficiency a huge amount. Cleanup is super fast. I have a hose from the coolant pump and just hose out all the chips that didn't wash out to the pan. Having a toolchanger lets me run the saw, deburr parts, first op on the lathe, you name it.

An acquaintance of mine bought a new Sharp CNC knee mill with prototypes and small production runs in mind. He usually can't run flood coolant. His mist setup has problems clearing chips from pockets so he has some ops where he has to use his air gun to clear chips. He has the machine "enclosed" with welder's curtains to try to contain the chips. Despite the curtains he has to run many tools at slowish speeds and feeds to minimize the mess. A lot of sweeping up at the end of an evenings work. The only advantage it has is a pretty long X travel.

He realizes his mistake in buying the knee mill and is saving up to buy an enclosed VMC and sell the knee mill.

I also found this. I'm not to sure about it not being under power also I'm not familiar with the controls. I've worked mainly with Fanuc, Haas, Okuma, and a little bit with Heidenhan.
1993 MHP-2 Hurco CNC Vertical Machining Center Mill - business/commercial - by owner - sale

Would one of those enclosed Tormach 1100's with an ATC work? Smallish but the price is right and a warranty and a huge installed base and single phase. Plus they are geared for garage size environments.

Not getting treated like a leper by your local dealer for not being a "real" shop would be nice too. If you like it save for a big industrial machine. Not like you couldn't flip it in a weekend there are so many people who would want one for less than full list price when you are done with it.

Cls84 said:

I also found this. I'm not to sure about it not being under power also I'm not familiar with the controls. I've worked mainly with Fanuc, Haas, Okuma, and a little bit with Heidenhan.
1993 MHP-2 Hurco CNC Vertical Machining Center Mill - business/commercial - by owner - sale

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That would be a great little machine for a garage and it's amazingly clean if those are recent photos. Hurco is a quality machine and Dynapath is a good control. I'd insist on seeing it run a program before I even considered making an offer on it though, my rule from experience is assume that anything you don't see run, doesn't run.

Mud said:

......my rule from experience is assume that anything you don't see run, doesn't run.

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That is a great rule!

triumph406 said:

Get a fully enclosed machine, if your going to do production work I'd get a machine with an ATC, maybe Haas Minimill, or maybe a small Fadal. Some of the small fadals came as single phase machines. Neither of those BP's is worth $5000 imho

When your using either of those BP's and coolant is spraying all over the garage, and your standing next to them all night changing tools, you'll wish you had a real VMC

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This. My first machine was a Bridgeport CNC knee mill (not a retrofit, an actual factory one) - it made such a mess and required constant attention when running. I replaced it with a Bridgeport VMC and it's night and day different.

When I moved out of my old house, the shop still had a giant oil stain on the floor with the shape of a Bridgeport pedestal in the middle of it, from all the goddamned coolant that pissed all over the floor.

Milltronics Paertner 6 - business/commercial - by owner - sale This would be a nice garage machine that still has tech support.

converterking said:

Milltronics Paertner 6 - business/commercial - by owner - sale This would be a nice garage machine that still has tech support.

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Ahh I polished a lot of turds using this same exact machine.

My 2 cents....

If you can't get parts(at a reasonable price) and you can't get support, might as well just go spend $5
grand$ on a boat anchor..

How much is a spindle drive going to cost you.. A spindle.. A driver board???

If you have a problem at 2am Sunday morning, can you hop on this message board and get an answer and
be back up and running by 3am????

Don't just look at what you can get onto your floor today, look at what will still be running on your floor
in a year, 3 years, 5 years... And how much that will cost you... If you can even keep it running at all
(the support and parts thing)..

FWIW, Milltronics support has changed dramatically, last I knew there was no more direct phone tech support, it all had to go to a local dealer. That's changed my opinion on Milltornics machines.

There are good independent Milltronics techs in the area. I don't know how factory support is for the older machines since Hurco bought Milltronics.